Scarred Memories
by Steahl
Summary: TO disable Logan, Kitty is held hostage. That is only teh first change in her life. A short fic based on a pairing challenge issued by Miranda. KitVic


Disclaimer: The friends made me do it. Sue them  
  
Author's note: This is a possible future, not comic canon. Please, if you want to flame, be creative.  
  
Scarred Memories  
  
It was a perfect world, and it had been bought in blood. Or so she told herself. Kitty Pryde, now known as Katherine Creed, held the hand of her six year old son and didn't shed a single tear as flowers piled high on the coffin.  
  
It was a large coffin as such go, it had to be. It held her husband after all. Victor Creed, Sabertooth, Pioneer of the new world. Of the mutant world. The world of their son.  
  
She watched the lilies and chrysanthemums pile high in a snowy blanket, and she remembered...  
  
...she remembered everything.   
  
Magneto was dead. His mark upon New York City remained as a parting gift, or a curse. And that was what started it. War. Such a simple concept, but in truth, ugly, bitter, and in the end, so complex as to rearrange the very fabric of existence.  
  
The war between mutant and mankind.  
  
Perhaps not the last war, but certainly one of the swiftest.  
  
There had only been one true thing standing between the united forces of Mutancy and the annihilation of mankind. The X-men.  
  
X-men. Mutants who stood on the side of justice, co-habitation, and peace; but in the end, fools. Strong fools. Fools who were not to be underestimated.  
  
That stalled the emergence of the armies for a few years while plans were hatched. How do you stop the X-men?  
  
Simple. You watch. You learn, and you observe the key figures. The leaders.  
  
Charles Xavier, pedantic prophet, purveyor of unrealistic dreams, the soft telepath, the false leader. The death of Magneto destroyed him so completely, aged him so thoroughly that Xavier became nothing more than a laughable memory. Nothing to worry over.  
  
Scott Summers became so embroiled in his teaching, running the school, and trying to become Xavier that he lost sight of the big picture. He lost sight of reality. He trained children and did nothing else.  
  
Perhaps that was partly due to his newest obsession, Emma Frost. An early placed, and effective operative. So good at her job.  
  
Ororo Monroe. Leader of the X.S.E. She had been a problem at first. An upstanding, strong woman dedicated to equal treatment and justice. A good cop. Alongside her husband, Bishop, they delayed the emergence of mutant supremacy. A well placed grenade during Ororo's first pregnancy though was able to curtail their effectiveness. Currently both members of the dynamic duo were in seclusion, nursing old wounds and mourning.  
  
That left the greatest, and perhaps most feared, weapon of all. Logan. Weapon X. How do you control a rampaging killing machine dedicated to a cause opposite to yours?  
  
That answer had been offered up by an acolyte of the Great Magneto. By Victor Creed. And it was elegantly simple. You take everything and anything that he cares about and you hold it against his good behavior.  
  
In short, a strike team took Jubilation Lee and Katherine Pryde. Those that the raging creature had sworn to protect, to nurture. The strike team took the heart and soul of Logan.  
  
...and they gave them into safe keeping. The girls were given into Victor Creeds hands.  
  
And they were treated well, for few things could upset the delicate hostage situation more than mistreating the girls.  
  
And that was how it began. Two women, a feral mutant, and a little house up in the mountains.   
  
With the X-men no longer posing a problem, mutants began to arise. A few deaths here, a few slaves there...small stones in the avalanche to come. And through it all, Logan's deadliest enemy babysat. And behaved.  
  
And that was what truly bothered Kitty. All her life she'd known that Sabertooth was horrid and feral. Savage. He'd even had her at his mercy a few times. An experience she couldn't help but shudder away from.  
  
...and here he had two women in suppression collars, and was the perfect gentleman.  
  
It took a year for Jubilee and Kitty's "time of the month" to synchronize. Once it did, Victor had left the house for the necessary week, hunting, prowling the land, giving privacy in an unstated act of trust and privacy.  
  
That, naturally, they'd taken advantage of. Once. Jubilee had insisted they get away. And Kitty had agreed. And simple as that the two had started out away from the house. Only to find Creed waiting for them in the pass. That was the one time he struck them.  
  
Jubilee had taken her blows without flinching, and Kitty could do no less...and then he had stood aside, sorrow in his eyes, or so she told herself, and let them pass.  
  
Out into the world.  
  
A world in mid-change is a terrifying thing. And that was what they found. Abandoned cities, destroyed communication lines, no food...and no way to get to their friends.  
  
A perfect situation to breed dependence.  
  
And it had worked.  
  
A week and a half later Kitty had stumbled "home" carrying Jubilee. The girl had been bitten by a snake, and Kitty had brought her to the only place she knew someone to be. Victor had opened the door and looked at her with those cold, chill eyes and smiled.  
  
And he'd demanded a price for saving Jubilee.  
  
By the time Jubilee had recovered, Kitty was officially Katherine Creed. And she'd earned her first scars.  
  
Small pinpricks, marks, a show that she was claimed, nothing more. But they hadn't hurt. In fact...they had felt almost good.  
  
Jubilee hung herself a month later. But Kitty, Kitty stayed. She was slowly learning.  
  
Victor Creed was not someone one could ever love, no, but she was leaning to care for the small things. The animals he brought home from his hunts just for her, alive and small. Pets.  
  
The way he purred late at night.  
  
How warm he was, how solid on a cold night.  
  
And how much of a dreamer he was in his own way.  
  
She learned to love the man, and care for the beast as the world changed around them. Deep in her heart, she missed being there at the center of things, but here had it's own, infectious peace that slowly began to eat into her.  
  
An acceptance of a simpler life.  
  
Life continued untouched in their pristine, snow filled world. Their "home". The collar had been removed months ago, and yet...she stayed.  
  
There were reports of a new world on the radio, and new leaders. And she stayed.  
  
Team, members from the days of Magneto came to visit her husband, and she stayed...and she bore a child. Their son. Victor received a medal that day. A medal for finding out how to neutralize Logan. To allow the birth of the new world.  
  
In memory, Katherine named their son Logan. And smiled.  
  
Years passed like a river, blurred, fast moving. Logan learned to walk, then learned to hunt by his father's side. And then, he learned to "ghost" almost phasing but not quite.  
  
And then her child's namesake found them.  
  
It was short. And it was bloody. But Katherine and Logan watched it all as the two men battled. Victor was nothing compared to the rage that the older Logan had stored up.  
  
Victor died at her feet, and she hadn't cried.  
  
No. She'd phased the man who killed her husband into the very stones of the mountains she lived on and left him there, entombed.  
  
Now here she stood, in this brave, new world. And she stood alone. Beside her stood Logan Victor Creed. Her son, and he, he would be a man worthy of both his namesakes.  
  
And through it all, she didn't cry.  
  
After all, crying was for the weak, and she always had the scars to remember him by.   
Alrighty, that was a story in answer to a challenge issued by Miranda!  
There we go! 


End file.
